Papa's back was to me as he sat repairing the nets, facing out toward the Lake and chatting with Hartnell. Sunrifter was just rising. It's light glittered on the breeze-swept water and outlined the Caer with gold.

He adventured with Mum throughout the lands long ago, before they settled in the sturdy old house by the Laleldan docks to raise a family. They'd tell the tales at the bonfire gatherings, along with others who told their own tales and of course stories of lost Kimald. Our lore and history all passed down around the bonfire on warm summer nights. Now that I've had my taste of adventuring, I begin to realize there must have been things they left out...terrors and failures they'd perhaps been forced to escape, or never able to return to overcome.

I think---I think that's what stopped me from approaching him that morning on the island: He'd know I must have faced terrors he'd never mentioned in his stories, and suffered failures. And I'd see that searching look in his eyes: Had I returned, unable to cope? Had the evils of the world--old evils and new--been too much for me?

At last, I began to understand what was drawing me back to him--to my Mum and my sisters and brother and--well everything I'd left when I set out to become an adventurer. And I understand why I couldn't run up to him, shouting for one of his big joyful hugs.

...This will be the last I write of my family and my life on the docks of Lake Valorn. As I turned away and strode back over the pier that golden morning, I knew that I was at last walking away from my childhood, and into my future.